Darkmoon
by Lycoris Calantha
Summary: Vignettes. Subtly HeiYin because they're never anything else. Tenth. Massacre. Corpses. Mountains of them, fresh-killed, ready for scavengers, maggots, rot.
1. It Isn't The Same

"Where is Yin?"

It was a simple question, and the fact that you don't know frustrates you no end. It wasn't Mao's fault, of course, but he didn't know that all you dreamed of lately was Yin saying 'Sayonara'.

Farewell. It was a terribly final word and really, you hated not knowing. So you had drowned your worries and sorrows and it had worked for a time. Until you tried to get Shion and gotten Suou instead.

With Mao back, and Suou and July, sometimes you could see normal again. It wasn't the same, of course—it never will be.

While Mao was his usual acerbic self, he isn't the cat you call him, his former codename. He is still Mao and you are still Hei even if he is a flying squirrel and not a cat.

While July was a Doll and Suou was a girl—both of which Yin was, it wasn't her. They weren't the blind Scandinavian Doll with silver hair. Yin.

Even though you led her around half the time, she didn't complain. You supposed it was because she was a Doll and therefore _couldn't _mind, but in actuality, Yin was really different from all the other Dolls so maybe she _didn't_ mind.

So you say, 'I will kill 'her'.' instead, your mind drifting over the past. Mao of all people should be able to imagine.


	2. Different

(So, originally, this was entitled Izanami, but then I realized how little sense this made so I changed it and will write a chapter entitled 'Izanami' some time next week. Or next year. It depends on the episode.)

A Doll, however advanced, couldn't act on its own. It was this idea that was shattered by several Dolls, but Yin was the first.

Yin was different. Yin chose them, very literally, instead of a peaceful life. It was her choice to make, and though maybe others wouldn't say she could, she did.

She chose them. Chose Hei and Mao and Huang. Her_ nakama_, comrades. Chose the tiny, dingy tobacco shop where she would sit still for hours, days.

It was abnormal for a Doll to be able to cry, abnormal for them to take notice of things no one told them to, and Yin had done both.

In the end, what made Dolls so much different from humans, from Contractors? In the end, what separated the from Moratoria. They ate, they slept, they bled.

... They changed. They grew. For this reasons, why were Dolls treated less than human? As Hei watched Yin sleep at night, he couldn't see any difference at all.


	3. Irregular

Suou was a Contractor, and as such, should not feel. But she did. That was what made her an irregular Contractor. She felt, and she could not kill without remorse.

So how could this Doll that seemed so important to Pecha –Mao, she amended– her once-pet, and Hei, her teacher do so? Even July knew her!

A Doll, she understood, took orders and did next to nothing that was not asked of them. They were emotionless as Contractors and they… observed. Watched. They had observer spirits and they were essentially blank mediums.

_She_ killed a Contractor without any orders, without anyone asking her to. This much, Suou understood. _She_ was irregular, like Suou herself.

But then, Hei cherished_ her_, she thought_. Yin. She_ was important to him in a way she couldn't really understand, and she could see Yin cared for him though a Doll had no emotions. The one who stopped Suou from fulfilling the mission he had given her himself was Hei. It was Hei her to not shoot and afterwards Hei was as good as changed.

And so she couldn't help but feel jealous. To hold such a part of Hei's heart—_mind_? To actually _hold some sway _over his decisions. She envied that of the girl she didn't know.

And so when she saw the observer spirit hold him and melt away, she couldn't resist the impulse to kick the snow and the post.

But even so… he hadn't seen her, had he? He hadn't seen her in the cargo container. He wasn't saved by her the was Suoh herself was. He didn't see her as Suou did after leaving the store. If she would show herself to a stranger and a former comrade, why not to _Hei_ then?

Not showing herself to the one she seemed to care for so much… what _happened?_

* * *

Assuming that, of course, Suou doesn't know that non-contractors can't see observer spirits._  
_


	4. Lie

"_You should believe me. I won't leave you alone."_

"_You're lying."_

He hated how she said it so flatly, how accepting she was of it. He hated it when his words were a lie, too, and he hated that she could know it.

But even now he could still remember the way he held her back then, taking her slim wrist and pulling her down with him and embracing her, to comfort her and to comfort him.

He could remember her reaching out for him when she pulled him back, so long ago. _'Don't leave me!'_ And he'd taken her hand back then.

But now he had. He'd left her, just as she'd begged him not to, as he'd_ promised_ not to. Never mind that it couldn't have been avoided. He'd let it happen. That guilt was with him, and that was why he was irrational. It kept him that way.

And so he drank, and he drank, and he drank. It didn't really matter anymore. He could still do his job. And the alcohol glazed things over some of the time. Sometimes, he could pretend that he hadn't left her. That she didn't say 'Farewell'. And that she wasn't gone and that maybe she would still come back, safe and sound like nothing of the past few months after their peace was shattered happened.


	5. I Don't Understand

_A Scandinavian Doll with silver hair._

She must be pretty, Suou thought, rather pettily. Maybe ethereal-like. Fairylike. Dainty and sweet and not at all like Suoh. Calm in a way she was not – Hei seemed annoyed by her sometimes, after all.

Maybe not sweet after all, Suoh mused. Maybe someone as sour as Hei's temper…?

_No,_ she reasoned, logically. Hei probably wasn't as cranky as this once upon a time. Pecha had spoken of a Hei who ate a lot. She was seeing a bit of the old Hei now.

So, why the _hell_ wasn't he going after July? It was stupid. And, honestly, who would believe that the reason for that was 'he's just a Doll'? So was Yin and she could remember his desperation to save her.

_Я не понимаю_, she thought, the words rolling off her tongue as she spoke them aloud. _I don't understand_.

And she didn't. However much she tried to.

… _But in the end_, she thought almost ruefully. _Did it really matter?  
_


	6. Stop

"Izanami will kill Contractors."

Hei remembered Izanami and Izanagi's story. He remembered its end. Izanami swore to kill a thousand of Izanagi's men each day, and the angry god declared he'd make a thousand five hundred each day.

And now she destroyed Contractors with her own will.

He'd seen as much as he tried to follow her and she said farewell.

"Eighteenth Research Building. I have to stop her… If I don't, Hazuki-san will…!"

This slip of a girl in front of him wanted to stop her for all she wasn't one.

Of course. She did not see the Doll, Yin, as anything but 'Izanami', the one who would kill Contractors.

And Yin had, contrary as it seemed for her. She had, and it had gotten so that he couldn't take care of her as he thought he could.

She was blind, she was obedient, she was a _Doll_. She shouldn't have to kill anyone, much less want to kill people. But it didn't change the fact that she_ had._

But Yin didn't kill _him_, and he knew she didn't want to be was she was, the wrathful goddess of destruction. A peaceful life. A calm one, like the moon.

Why would Yin kill? She was never truly aggressive. Emphatic, but not with any malicious intentions.

She didn't kill him, and that was why he was going to stop her.


	7. Humanity

(Theory, that is to say, I don't have much basis for this and don't quite know why I did this. Um… if it makes anyone feel better, there'll be more updates soon.)

She awoke and she felt a clarity she hadn't felt for a long time.

When she did, she almost-smiled, because it had been far too long.

When people tried to stop her, (after all, she was _Izanami_, she who would bring destruction), she killed them.

If they were human, normal humans and not Contractors, maybe they could have succeeded. But they were there not really to defeat her but to protect her from who would try to take her, and so they left Contractors with the Anti-Contractor Weapon.

No one believed she could have had a will. A reason, for that matter. She was a weapon, and a Doll before that. She shouldn't have been able to wake up, to move anywhere because where would she go?

Maybe they didn't realize that before all that, she was_ human_. Before turning into a Doll, before being Izanami, the weapon who would bring Contractors to death.

And so she killed, being what she was _made to be_ and what she was _not_ both at once, because of her humanity.

She killed, the Contractors' bodies lifeless on the floor, killed by their very Contracts. It was a painful way to die. Somehow, it seemed like betrayal by what was precious to them, what they trusted in lieu of emotions.

It didn't really matter.

"We'll see each other soon," she whispered, mangled Contractor corpses on the ground, and her voice would have been described as bright if she could have shown emotion.


	8. Memory

She _remembered_. Being a Doll hadn't taken away her ability for that.

Kirsi, though she wasn't her, not really, she had those remnants of emotions. _'I felt this then,'_ and '_This is what I would feel now if I could.' _

She remembered how he'd hold her hand, her wrist, her arm, any part of her really. Remembered holding her firmly and leading her around. Could remember him diving towards her to save her from what she could not protect herself from.

Could remember him _finding_ her, even when she was a lost Doll without her Observer Spirit (because honestly, what use was a Doll without it?)

She felt _safe_.

She remembered him slipping her sweets as the tobacco shop, the bright plastic wrapping at contrasting with her generally colorless day.

Remembered how he'd asked her help and didn't try to turn her away when she dropped by his home while he was outside, observing him.

She felt _acknowledged_.

She remembered how he asked her opinion, giving her a choice, a decision, a say. How he'd follow her warnings without hesitation, a simple_ stop_, and he'd freeze.

She felt _trusted_.

She remembered running with him, and him jumping and her not knowing exactly where to go. "Jump, Yin," he told her, and she did. He'd caught her, as she knew he would.

Remembered his holding her, callused hands warm on the cold night. He'd embraced her, and she remembered just feeling the warmth and daring to think she could drown herself in it.

She felt _loved_.

* * *

So, um, yes, I'll try to stick something up this Christmas. Well, let's see, to put things simply, I'd appreciate the support if you're willing to give me any. Thank you. This is from the first series, with some very odd snippets of the OVA trailer.


	9. Vellamo

Merry Christmas! For the record, the raws of episode 12 are out. They... seem to create more questions than answers but I just want to put this out before I write something related to it.

And, yes, I hope you look to Finnish mythology? It's one of the least known ones I've found recently, and it's fascinating.

* * *

_Vellamo, the wife of Ahti, goddess of the sea, lakes and storms. She is sometimes described as "cold-hearted"._

Yin heard of Finnish mythology, once upon a time. She remembered they were distinctly different from the others of the Scandinavian region-- compared to Norse mythology that proliferated in their neighbors. Her mother told her stories, and then she dreamed.

And when she changed, turned from Kirsi to Yin, the Doll, she kept those memories.

Sometimes, while sitting on the floor of the dim tobacco shop, she would think. Remember. Take her fragmented memories and current situations and stick them together.

Her medium was water.

And as her heart whispered softly, she was unfeeling. A Doll. _Cold-hearted._

Like Vellamo, then, but without her Ahti to keep her company.

And then Hei passed by, and while they interacted as usual, few words but with the passing of information, their fingers brushed ever so slightly. He left to come back another day, and her heart (_fickle heart_) skipped a beat, moved, _sang_, and she folded her hands together just a bit tighter.

Not so like, after all.


	10. Massacre

Corpses. Mountains of them, fresh-killed, ready for scavengers, maggots, rot.

Hei always found something unsettling over massacre. Murder was terrible enough, and it caused a lot of grief and heartbreak.

But what of all the souls of those who died under the same circumstances at approximately the same time gathered together? There was something painful about that. Something that all but rent the atmosphere with heavy, heavy grief.

And he's seen many massacres. Heaven's Gate, his sister's work. Azusa's work, even, that girl who had been betrayed by love.

But somehow the massacre Yin makes is worse.

Bai—no, _Xing's _massacre was terrible, it was true. His sister. It haunted him many years later, her innocent smile surrounded by dead.

Even so, Yin's was terrible, because the corpses at her feet killed themselves. Because she didn't enjoy it and it was for him and it didn't disgust her and there was something wrong about a perfectly placid face after a massacre, it was terrible.

* * *

It's been a while? I'm psyched for the next OVA, is all. Who isn't?


End file.
